Last week Al Gore rolled into town â€“ closely followed by Arnold who was out to deter Canadians from consuming more than their fair share of non-renewable fossil fuels and urging them to do their bit to save the environment. No matter that he arrived in his king-sized Hummer that gets 2 miles to the gallon and has to be refueled every five minutes by a tanker truck hired especially for the purpose. Well alright I donâ€™t know if he actually showed up in his Hummer but I know heâ€™s got one â€“ or maybe four – stashed away someplace on one of his vast estates in California that he uses to escort Maria to her Pilates class or maybe itâ€™s McDonalds â€“ which is doubtful considering she could give Nicole Richie a run for her money in the â€˜skinniest person still breathingâ€™ stakes.

Al Gore â€“ oh yes I was talking about him wasnâ€™t I. He was here in Canada to publicize his film and book â€˜An Inconvenient Truthâ€™, http://www.climatecrisis.net , an opinion piece about Global Warming and other politically timely environmental issues. I say â€œOpinion Pieceâ€ because in my humble view Global Warming is an unproven theory at best. We cannot know for sure if â€˜carbon emissionsâ€™ for example, will affect our planet catastrophically unless we carefully consider all of the evidence, both pro and con; and despite the fact that a great deal of preliminary research exists the consensus is that we donâ€™t really know all that much about it at all. Does that surprise you? The fact of the matter is that there has simply not been enough time, or money, to study every aspect of things from every angle. There are those for example who say that carbon emissions may have nothing much to do with anything and cyclical solar activity could just as well be the culprit as any other. Furthermore, as far as we can tell from the geological record the Earth as a dynamic system has gone through many periods of both warming and cooling, not to mention pole reversals, and rather than warming up in the near future we may very well be in for an extended period of cooling down before the end of this century. Those nomadic beasts that are moving up north because theyâ€™re too hot will more than likely be moving to Barbados within 20 years because theyâ€™re getting too cold.

Climatologists admit that they still know very little about climate change but they do say that increased hurricane activity over a period of a few years for instance is no reason to state that hurricanes are increasing in frequency and severity over the long term. And there is no hard evidence that Global Warming is to blame â€“ if it even exists. There is some evidence out there, dismissed no doubt by Alâ€™s camp, that indicates that the Antarctic is actually cooling by a fraction of a degree every year. The Vikings called Greenland GREENLAND because it was green – at the time. And another thing â€“ Mars is also going through a warming trend right now because its polar ice-caps are seen to be melting. How do you explain that then Al, when as far as we know, there are no factories or 747â€™s, or even Hummers on Mars.

There was a very interesting series of articles published by the Financial Post last April http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/story.html?id=22003a0d-37cc-4399-8bcc-39cd20bed2f6&k=0 which spotlighted the debate between the â€˜Deniersâ€™, those who believe that Global Warming is a figment of Alâ€™s imagination, and the, letâ€™s call them, â€˜The Embracersâ€™, those who believe that the Earth is on an imminent course to disaster and that little red LED machine in the sky has started flashing â€˜Self destruct in Four Minutesâ€™. The Deniers believe that the debate is far from being settled and that much more research is required before we push the panic button. They make a compelling argument.

This is what concerns me about activists such as Al Gore â€“ we are being force-fed his views without adequate study to back them up. If the evidence was all in I would say that we should whole-heartedly and unreservedly embrace his message. But it appears that the evidence is NOT all in, and it worries me that this sort of propaganda is being promoted as gospel within our schools and children are being made to swallow this information whole because it sounds plausible â€“ and admittedly it does. But that doesnâ€™t make it right â€“ or true. I may be a cynic but something smacks to me of big business and profit here. There is a bad odor somewhere. I have the feeling that there is a whiff of a financial motive at the very bottom of this â€“ if it is not manifest in increased sales of â€˜environmentally friendlyâ€™ products and services, it certainly garners lots of free publicity, and is at the very least a great vote getter. And Iâ€™m not saying that we should continue to pollute our planet and poison the seas. Obviously it only makes sense to be environmentally conscious but thatâ€™s another matter entirely. I disagree with being beaten over the head with only half a stick and I have a sneaking suspicion that once we all blow ourselves to Kingdom Come in some half-baked argument over religion, politics, territory, oil or whether or not Paris is hotter than Britney, the old Earth will just keep rolling around the sun as always, heating, cooling and ticking like a clock â€“ with or without us. The dinos found that out the hard way.

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